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Object-Oriented Software Engineering

Practical Software Development using UML and Java

Chapter 9:
Architecting and Designing Software
9.1 The Process of Design

Definition:
Design is a problem-solving process whose objective is
to find and describe a way:
To implement the systems functional requirements...
While respecting the constraints imposed by the
quality, platform and process requirements...
- including the budget
And while adhering to general principles of good
quality

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 2


Design as a series of decisions

A designer is faced with a series of design issues


These are sub-problems of the overall design problem.
Each issue normally has several alternative solutions:
design options.
The designer makes a design decision to resolve each
issue.
This process involves choosing the best option from
among the alternatives.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 3


Making decisions

To make each design decision, the software engineer


uses:
Knowledge of
the requirements
the design as created so far
the technology available
software design principles and best practices
what has worked well in the past

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Design space

The space of possible designs that could be achieved by choosing


different sets of alternatives is often called the design space
For example:

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Component
Any piece of software or hardware that has a clear role.
A component can be isolated, allowing you to replace it with
a different component that has equivalent functionality.
Many components are designed to be reusable.
Conversely, others perform special-purpose functions.

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Module

A component that is defined at the programming


language level
For example, methods, classes and packages are
modules in Java.

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System

A logical entity, having a set of definable responsibilities or


objectives, and consisting of hardware, software or both.
A system can have a specification which is then implemented by a
collection of components.
A system continues to exist, even if its components are changed or
replaced.
The goal of requirements analysis is to determine the responsibilities
of a system.

Subsystem:
A system that is part of a larger system, and which has a definite
interface

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 8


Describing an architecture using UML

All UML diagrams can be useful to describe aspects of


the architectural model
Four UML diagrams are particularly suitable for
architecture modelling:
Package diagrams
Subsystem diagrams
Component diagrams
Deployment diagrams

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 9


Different aspects of design

Architecture design:
The division into subsystems and components,
- How these will be connected.
- How they will interact.
- Their interfaces.
Class design:
The various features of classes.
User interface design
Algorithm design:
The design of computational mechanisms.
Protocol design:
The design of communications protocol.

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Top-down and bottom-up design

Top-down design
First design the very high level structure of the system.
Then gradually work down to detailed decisions about
low-level constructs.
Finally arrive at detailed decisions such as:
the format of particular data items;
the individual algorithms that will be used.

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Top-down and bottom-up design

Bottom-up design
Make decisions about reusable low-level utilities.
Then decide how these will be put together to create
high-level constructs.

A mix of top-down and bottom-up approaches are


normally used:
Top-down design is almost always needed to give the
system a good structure.
Bottom-up design is normally useful so that reusable
components can be created.

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9.2 Principles Leading to Good Design

Overall goals of good design:


Increasing profit by reducing cost and increasing
revenue
Ensuring that we actually conform with the requirements
Accelerating development
Increasing qualities such as
Usability
Efficiency
Reliability
Maintainability
Reusability

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Design Principle 1: Divide and conquer

Trying to deal with something big all at once is normally


much harder than dealing with a series of smaller things
Separate people can work on each part.
An individual software engineer can specialize.
Each individual component is smaller, and therefore
easier to understand.
Parts can be replaced or changed without having to
replace or extensively change other parts.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 15


Ways of dividing a software system

A distributed system is divided up into clients and


servers

A system is divided up into subsystems

A subsystem can be divided up into one or more


packages

A package is divided up into classes

A class is divided up into methods

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 16


Design Principle 2: Increase cohesion where
possible
A subsystem or module has high cohesion if it keeps
together things that are related to each other, and keeps
out other things
This makes the system as a whole easier to understand
and change
Type of cohesion:
Functional, Layer, Communicational, Sequential,
Procedural, Temporal, Utility

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Functional cohesion

This is achieved when all the code that computes a


particular result is kept together - and everything else is
kept out
i.e. when a module only performs a single computation,
and returns a result, without having side-effects.
Benefits to the system:
Easier to understand
More reusable
Easier to replace
Modules that update a database, create a new file or
interact with the user are not functionally cohesive

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Layer cohesion

All the facilities for providing or accessing a set of related services are
kept together, and everything else is kept out
The layers should form a hierarchy
Higher layers can access services of lower layers,
Lower layers do not access higher layers
The set of procedures through which a layer provides its services is
the application programming interface (API)
You can replace a layer without having any impact on the other
layers
You just replicate the API

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Example of the use of layers

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Communicational cohesion

All the modules that access or manipulate certain data are


kept together (e.g. in the same class) - and everything
else is kept out
A class would have good communicational cohesion
if all the systems facilities for storing and
manipulating its data are contained in this class.
if the class does not do anything other than manage
its data.
Main advantage: When you need to make changes to the
data, you find all the code in one place

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 21


Sequential cohesion

Procedures, in which one procedure provides input to the


next, are kept together and everything else is kept out
You should achieve sequential cohesion, only once you
have already achieved the preceding types of cohesion.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 22


Procedural cohesion

Procedures that are used one after another are kept


together
Even if one does not necessarily provide input to the
next.
Weaker than sequential cohesion.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 23


Temporal Cohesion

Operations that are performed during the same phase of


the execution of the program are kept together, and
everything else is kept out
For example, placing together the code used during
system start-up or initialization.
Weaker than procedural cohesion.

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Utility cohesion

When related utilities which cannot be logically placed in


other cohesive units are kept together
A utility is a procedure or class that has wide
applicability to many different subsystems and is
designed to be reusable.
For example, the java.lang.Math class.

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Design Principle 3: Reduce coupling where
possible
Coupling occurs when there are interdependencies
between one module and another
When interdependencies exist, changes in one place will
require changes somewhere else.
A network of interdependencies makes it hard to see at a
glance how some component works.
Type of coupling:
Content, Common, Stamp, Data, Routine Call, Type
use, Inclusion/Import, External

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Content coupling:

Occurs when one component surreptitiously modifies


data that is internal to another component
To reduce content coupling you should therefore
encapsulate all instance variables
declare them private
and provide get and set methods
A worse form of content coupling occurs when you
directly modify an instance variable of an instance
variable

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Common coupling

Occurs whenever you use a global variable


All the components using the global variable become
coupled to each other
A weaker form of common coupling is when a variable
can be accessed by a subset of the systems classes
e.g. a Java package
Can be acceptable for creating global variables that
represent system-wide default values
The Singleton pattern provides encapsulated global
access to an object

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Stamp coupling:

Occurs whenever one of your application classes is


declared as the type of a method argument
Since one class now uses the other, changing the system
becomes harder
Reusing one class requires reusing the other

Two ways to reduce stamp coupling,


using an interface as the argument type
passing simple variables

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Example of stamp coupling
public class Emailer
{
public void sendEmail(Employee e, String text)
{...}
...
}

Using simple data types to avoid it:


public class Emailer
{
public void sendEmail(String name, String email, String text)
{...}
...
}

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Example of stamp coupling
Using an interface to avoid it:
public interface Addressee
{
public abstract String getName();
public abstract String getEmail();
}

public class Employee implements Addressee {}

public class Emailer


{
public void sendEmail(Addressee e, String text)
{...}
...
}

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Data coupling

Occurs whenever the types of method arguments are


either primitive or else simple library classes
The more arguments a method has, the higher the
coupling
All methods that use the method must pass all the
arguments
You should reduce coupling by not giving methods
unnecessary arguments

There is a trade-off between data coupling and stamp


coupling
Increasing one often decreases the other

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 36


Routine call coupling

Occurs when one routine (or method in an object


oriented system) calls another
The routines are coupled because they depend on each
others behaviour
Routine call coupling is always present in any system.

If you repetitively use a sequence of two or more


methods to compute something
then you can reduce routine call coupling by writing
a single routine that encapsulates the sequence.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 37


Type use coupling

Occurs when a module uses a data type defined in


another module
It occurs any time a class declares an instance variable or
a local variable as having another class for its type.
The consequence of type use coupling is that if the type
definition changes, then the users of the type may have
to change
Always declare the type of a variable to be the most
general possible class or interface that contains the
required operations

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 38


Inclusion or import coupling

Occurs when one component imports a package


(as in Java)
or when one component includes another
(as in C++).
The including or importing component is now exposed
to everything in the included or imported component.
If the included/imported component changes something
or adds something.
This may raises a conflict with something in the
includer, forcing the includer to change.
An item in an imported component might have the same
name as something you have already defined.

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External coupling

When a module has a dependency on such things as the


operating system, shared libraries or the hardware
It is best to reduce the number of places in the code
where such dependencies exist.
The Faade design pattern can reduce external coupling

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Design Principle 4: Keep the level of
abstraction as high as possible
Ensure that your designs allow you to hide or defer
consideration of details, thus reducing complexity
A good abstraction is said to provide information hiding
Abstractions allow you to understand the essence of a
subsystem without having to know unnecessary details

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Abstraction and classes
Classes are data abstractions that contain procedural
abstractions
Abstraction is increased by defining all variables as
private.
The fewer public methods in a class, the better the
abstraction
Superclasses and interfaces increase the level of
abstraction
Attributes and associations are also data abstractions.
Methods are procedural abstractions
Better abstractions are achieved by giving methods
fewer parameters

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Design Principle 5: Increase reusability
where possible
Design the various aspects of your system so that they
can be used again in other contexts (Design for reuse)
Generalize your design as much as possible
Follow the preceding three design principles
Design your system to contain hooks
Simplify your design as much as possible

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Design Principle 6: Reuse existing designs
and code where possible
Design with reuse is complementary to design for
reusability
Actively reusing designs or code allows you to take
advantage of the investment you or others have made in
reusable components
Cloning should not be seen as a form of reuse

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Design Principle 7: Design for flexibility

Actively anticipate changes that a design may have to


undergo in the future, and prepare for them
Reduce coupling and increase cohesion
Create abstractions
Do not hard-code anything
Leave all options open
Do not restrict the options of people who have to
modify the system later
Use reusable code and make code reusable

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Design Principle 8: Anticipate obsolescence

Plan for changes in the technology or environment so


the software will continue to run or can be easily
changed
Avoid using early releases of technology
Avoid using software libraries that are specific to
particular environments
Avoid using undocumented features or little-used
features of software libraries
Avoid using software or special hardware from
companies that are less likely to provide long-term
support
Use standard languages and technologies that are
supported by multiple vendors

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 46


Design Principle 9: Design for Portability

Have the software run on as many platforms as possible


Avoid the use of facilities that are specific to one
particular environment
E.g. a library only available in Microsoft Windows

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Design Principle 10: Design for Testability

Take steps to make testing easier


Design a program to automatically test the software
Discussed more in Chapter 10
Ensure that all the functionality of the code can by
driven by an external program, bypassing a graphical
user interface
In Java, you can create a main() method in each class in
order to exercise the other methods

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 48


Design Principle 11: Design defensively

Never trust how others will try to use a component you


are designing
Handle all cases where other code might attempt to use
your component inappropriately
Check that all of the inputs to your component are valid:
the preconditions
Unfortunately, over-zealous defensive design can
result in unnecessarily repetitive checking

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 49


Design by contract

A technique that allows you to design defensively in an


efficient and systematic way
Key idea
each method has an explicit contract with its callers
The contract has a set of assertions that state:
What preconditions the called method requires to be
true when it starts executing
What postconditions the called method agrees to
ensure are true when it finishes executing
What invariants the called method agrees will not
change as it executes

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9.3 Techniques for making good design
decisions
Using priorities and objectives to decide among
alternatives
Step 1: List and describe the alternatives for the design
decision.
Step 2: List the advantages and disadvantages of each
alternative with respect to your objectives and priorities.
Step 3: Determine whether any of the alternatives
prevents you from meeting one or more of the
objectives.
Step 4: Choose the alternative that helps you to best
meet your objectives.
Step 5: Adjust priorities for subsequent decision making.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 51


Example priorities and objectives
Imagine a system has the following objectives, starting with top priority:
Security: Encryption must not be breakable within 100 hours of
computing time on a 400Mhz Intel processor, using known cryptanalysis
techniques.
Maintainability. No specific objective.
CPU efficiency. Must respond to the user within one second when
running on a 400MHz Intel processor.
Network bandwidth efficiency: Must not require transmission of more
than 8KB of data per transaction.
Memory efficiency. Must not consume over 20MB of RAM.
Portability. Must be able to run on Windows 98, NT 4 and ME as well
as Linux

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Example evaluation of alternatives

DNMO means Does Not Meet the Objective

Using cost-benefit analysis to choose among alternatives

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9.5 Software Architecture

Software architecture is process of designing the global


organization of a software system, including:
Dividing software into subsystems.
Deciding how these will interact.
Determining their interfaces.
The architecture is the core of the design, so all
software engineers need to understand it.
The architecture will often constrain the overall
efficiency, reusability and maintainability of the
system.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 55


9.6 Architectural Patterns

The notion of patterns can be applied to software


architecture.
These are called architectural patterns or architectural
styles.
Each allows you to design flexible systems using
components
The components are as independent of each other as
possible.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 64


The Multi-Layer architectural pattern

In a layered system, each layer communicates only with the layer


immediately below it.
Each layer has a well-defined interface used by the layer
immediately above.
The higher layer sees the lower layer as a set of services.
A complex system can be built by superposing layers at increasing
levels of abstraction.
It is important to have a separate layer for the UI.
Layers immediately below the UI layer provide the application
functions determined by the use-cases.
Bottom layers provide general services.
- e.g. network communication, database access

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 65


Example of multi-layer systems

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The multi-layer architecture and design
principles
1. Divide and conquer: The layers can be independently
designed.
2. Increase cohesion: Well-designed layers have layer
cohesion.
3. Reduce coupling: Well-designed lower layers do not
know about the higher layers and the only connection
between layers is through the API.
4. Increase abstraction: you do not need to know the
details of how the lower layers are implemented.
5. Increase reusability: The lower layers can often be
designed generically.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 67


The multi-layer architecture and design
principles
6. Increase reuse: You can often reuse layers built by
others that provide the services you need.
7. Increase flexibility: you can add new facilities built on
lower-level services, or replace higher-level layers.
8. Anticipate obsolescence: By isolating components in
separate layers, the system becomes more resistant to
obsolescence.
9. Design for portability: All the dependent facilities can
be isolated in one of the lower layers.
10. Design for testability: Layers can be tested
independently.
11. Design defensively: The APIs of layers are natural
places to build in rigorous assertion-checking.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 68


The Client-Server and other distributed
architectural patterns
There is at least one component that has the role of
server, waiting for and then handling connections.

There is at least one component that has the role of


client, initiating connections in order to obtain some
service.

A further extension is the Peer-to-Peer pattern.


A system composed of various software components
that are distributed over several hosts.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 69


An example of a distributed system

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The distributed architecture and design
principles
1. Divide and conquer: Dividing the system into client and server
processes is a strong way to divide the system.
Each can be separately developed.
2. Increase cohesion: The server can provide a cohesive service to
clients.
3. Reduce coupling: There is usually only one communication channel
exchanging simple messages.
4. Increase abstraction: Separate distributed components are often
good abstractions.
6. Increase reuse: It is often possible to find suitable frameworks on
which to build good distributed systems
However, client-server systems are often very application
specific.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 71


The distributed architecture and design
principles
7. Design for flexibility: Distributed systems can often be
easily reconfigured by adding extra servers or clients.
9. Design for portability: You can write clients for new
platforms without having to port the server.
10 Design for testability: You can test clients and servers
independently.
11. Design defensively: You can put rigorous checks in the
message handling code.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 72


The Broker architectural pattern

Transparently distribute aspects of the software system


to different nodes
An object can call methods of another object without
knowing that this object is remotely located.
CORBA is a well-known open standard that allows
you to build this kind of architecture.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 73


Example of a Broker system

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The broker architecture and design
principles
1. Divide and conquer: The remote objects can be independently
designed.
5. Increase reusability: It is often possible to design the remote objects
so that other systems can use them too.
6. Increase reuse: You may be able to reuse remote objects that others
have created.
7. Design for flexibility: The brokers can be updated as required, or
the proxy can communicate with a different remote object.
9. Design for portability: You can write clients for new platforms
while still accessing brokers and remote objects on other platforms.
11. Design defensively: You can provide careful assertion checking in
the remote objects.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 75


The Transaction-Processing architectural
pattern
A process reads a series of inputs one by one.
Each input describes a transaction a command that
typically some change to the data stored by the system
There is a transaction dispatcher component that decides
what to do with each transaction
This dispatches a procedure call or message to one of a
series of component that will handle the transaction

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 76


Example of a transaction-processing system

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 77


The transaction-processing architecture and
design principles
1. Divide and conquer: The transaction handlers are
suitable system divisions that you can give to separate
software engineers.
2. Increase cohesion: Transaction handlers are naturally
cohesive units.
3. Reduce coupling: Separating the dispatcher from the
handlers tends to reduce coupling.
7. Design for flexibility: You can readily add new
transaction handlers.
11. Design defensively: You can add assertion checking in
each transaction handler and/or in the dispatcher.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 78


The Pipe-and-Filter architectural pattern

A stream of data, in a relatively simple format, is passed


through a series of processes
Each of which transforms it in some way.
Data is constantly fed into the pipeline.
The processes work concurrently.
The architecture is very flexible.
Almost all the components could be removed.
Components could be replaced.
New components could be inserted.
Certain components could be reordered.

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Example of a pipe-and-filter system

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The pipe-and-filter architecture and design
principles
1. Divide and conquer: The separate processes can be
independently designed.
2. Increase cohesion: The processes have functional
cohesion.
3. Reduce coupling: The processes have only one input
and one output.
4. Increase abstraction: The pipeline components are
often good abstractions, hiding their internal details.
5. Increase reusability: The processes can often be used in
many different contexts.
6. Increase reuse: It is often possible to find reusable
components to insert into a pipeline.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 81


The pipe-and-filter architecture and design
principles
7. Design for flexibility: There are several ways in which
the system is flexible.
10. Design for testability: It is normally easy to test the
individual processes.
11. Design defensively: You rigorously check the inputs of
each component, or else you can use design by contract.

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The Model-View-Controller (MVC)
architectural pattern
An architectural pattern used to help separate the user
interface layer from other parts of the system
The model contains the underlying classes whose
instances are to be viewed and manipulated
The view contains objects used to render the appearance
of the data from the model in the user interface
The controller contains the objects that control and
handle the users interaction with the view and the model
The Observable design pattern is normally used to
separate the model from the view

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Example of the MVC architecture for the UI

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Example of MVC in Web architecture

The View component generates the HTML code to be


displayed by the browser.
The Controller is the component that interprets HTTP
post transmissions coming back from the browser.
The Model is the underlying system that manages the
information.

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The MVC architecture and design principles
1. Divide and conquer: The three components can be somewhat
independently designed.
2. Increase cohesion: The components have stronger layer cohesion
than if the view and controller were together in a single UI layer.
3. Reduce coupling: The communication channels between the three
components are minimal.
6. Increase reuse: The view and controller normally make extensive
use of reusable components for various kinds of UI controls.
7. Design for flexibility: It is usually quite easy to change the UI by
changing the view, the controller, or both.
10. Design for testability: You can test the application separately from
the UI.

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The Service-oriented architectural pattern

This architecture organizes an application as a collection


of services that communicates using well-defined
interfaces
In the context of the Internet, the services are called Web
services
A web service is an application, accessible through the
Internet, that can be integrated with other services to
form a complete system
The different components generally communicate with
each other using open standards such as XML.

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Example of a service-oriented application

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The Service-oriented architecture and
design principles
1. Divide and conquer: The application is made of
independently designed services.
2. Increase cohesion: The Web services are structured as
layers and generally have good functional cohesion.
3. Reduce coupling: Web-based applications are loosely
coupled built by binding together distributed
components.
5. Increase reusability: A Web service is a highly reusable
component.
6. Increase reuse: Web-based applications are built by
reusing existing Web services.
8. Anticipate obsolescence: Obsolete services can be
replaced by new implementation without impacting the
applications that use them.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 89


The Service-oriented architecture and
design principles
9. Design for portability: A service can be implemented on
any platform that supports the required standards.
10. Design for testability: Each service can be tested
independently.
11. Design defensively: Web services enforce defensive
design since different applications can access the
service.

Lethbridge/Laganire 2005 Chapter 9: Architecting and designing software 90


The Message-oriented architectural pattern
Under this architecture, the different sub-systems communicate and
collaborate to accomplish some task only by exchanging messages.
Also known as Message-oriented Middleware (MOM)
The core of this architecture is an application-to-application
messaging system
Senders and receivers need only to know what are the message
formats
In addition, the communicating applications do not have to be
available at the same time (i.e. messages can be made persistent)
The self-contained messages are sent by one component (the
publisher) through virtual channels (topics) to which other
interested software components can subscribe (subscribers)

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Example of a Message-oriented application

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The Message-oriented architecture and
design principles
1. Divide and conquer: The application is made of isolated software
components.
3. Reduce coupling: The components are loosely coupled since they
share only data format.
4. Increase abstraction: The prescribed format of the messages are
generally simple to manipulate, all the application details being
hidden behind the messaging system.
5. Increase reusability: A component will be resusable is the message
formats are flexible enough.
6. Increase reuse: The components can be reused as long as the new
system adhere to the proposed message formats.

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The Message-oriented architecture and
design principles
7. Design for flexibility: The functionality of a message-
oriented system can be easily updated or enhanced by
adding or replacing components in the system.
10. Design for testability: Each component can be tested
independently.
11. Design defensively: Defensive design consists simply
of validating all received messages before processing
them.

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Summary of architecture versus design
principles
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Multi-layers
Client-server
Broker
Transaction processing

Pipe-and-filter
MVC
Service-oriented

Message-oriented

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9.7 Writing a Good Design Document

Design documents as an aid to making better designs


They force you to be explicit and consider the important
issues before starting implementation.
They allow a group of people to review the design and
therefore to improve it.
Design documents as a means of communication.
To those who will be implementing the design.
To those who will need, in the future, to modify the
design.
To those who need to create systems or subsystems
that interface with the system being designed.

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Structure of a design document
A. Purpose:
What system or part of the system this design document describes.
Make reference to the requirements that are being implemented by this
design (traceability) .
B. General priorities:
Describe the priorities used to guide the design process.
C. Outline of the design:
Give a high-level description of the design that allows the reader to
quickly get a general feeling for it.
D. Major design issues:
Discuss the important issues that had to be resolved.
Give the possible alternatives that were considered, the final decision
and the rationale for the decision.
E. Other details of the design:
Give any other details the reader may want to know that have not yet
been mentioned.

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When writing the document

Avoid documenting information that would be readily


obvious to a skilled programmer or designer.
Avoid writing details in a design document that would be
better placed as comments in the code.
Avoid writing details that can be extracted automatically
from the code, such as the list of public methods.

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9.8 Design of a Feature of the SimpleChat
System
A. Purpose
This document describes important aspects of the implementation of the
#block, #unblock, #whoiblock and #whoblocksme commands of the
SimpleChat system.

B. General Priorities
Decisions in this document are made based on the following priorities
(most important first): Maintainability, Usability, Portability, Efficiency

C. Outline of the design


Blocking information will be maintained in the ConnectionToClient
objects. The various commands will update and query the data using
setValue and getValue.

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Design Example
D. Major design issue

Issue 1: Where should we store information regarding the establishment of


blocking?

Option 1.1: Store the information in the ConnectionToClient object


associated with the client requesting the block.

Option 1.2: Store the information in the ConnectionToClient object


associated with the client that is being blocked.

Decision: Point 2.2 of the specification requires that we be able to block a


client even if that client is not logged on. This means that we must choose
option 1.1 since no ConnectionToClient will exist for clients that are
logged off.

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Design Example

E. Details of the design:

Client side:

The four new commands will be accepted by


handleMessageFromClientUI and passed unchanged to the server.

Responses from the server will be displayed on the UI. There will be no
need for handleMessageFromServer to understand that the responses are
replies to the commands.

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Design Example
Server side:
Method handleMessageFromClient will interpret #block commands
by adding a record of the block in the data associated with the
originating client.
This method will modify the data in response to #unblock.
The information will be stored by calling setValue("blockedUsers",
arg)
where arg is a Vector containing the names of the blocked users.
Method handleMessageFromServerUI will also have to have an
implementation of #block and #unblock.
These will have to save the blocked users as elements of a new
instance variable declared thus: Vector blockedUsers;

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Design Example

The implementations of #whoiblock in


handleMessageFromClient and
handleMessageFromServerUI will straightforwardly process
the contents of the vectors.
For #whoblocksme, a new method will be created in the server
class that will be called by both handleMessageFromClient
and handleMessageFromServerUI.
This will take a single argument (the name of the initiating
client, or else 'SERVER').
It will check all the blockedUsers vectors of the connected
clients and also the blockedUsers instance variable for
matching clients.

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Design example

The #forward, #msg and #private commands will be


modified as needed to reflect the specifications.
Each of these will each examine the relevant blockedUsers
vectors and take appropriate action.

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9.9 Difficulties and Risks in Design
Like modelling, design is a skill that requires considerable
experience
Individual software engineers should not attempt the
design of large systems
Aspiring software architects should actively study
designs of other systems

Poor designs can lead to expensive maintenance


Ensure you follow the principles discussed in this
chapter

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Difficulties and Risks in Design

It requires constant effort to ensure a software systems


design remains good throughout its life
Make the original design as flexible as possible so
as to anticipate changes and extensions.
Ensure that the design documentation is usable and
at the correct level of detail
Ensure that change is carefully managed

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